Green News: Mtwara Moringa Project

Just arrived in Morogoro, where Merritt is here for a week of training and I am tagging along for company (and to avoid the bus trip, when I have to be in Dar next week). The road from Mtwara was as bad as we’d heard and we were glad to make it out of the Deep South without trouble. It’s great to be back in Morogoro, one of our favorite cities in Tanzania. Traveling also has a way of reminding yourself that you’re actually living in a foreign country – after months at homesite.

Perhaps the most distinct memory of the trip was seeing all the roadside buildings in villages along the way that have been marked for “bemoa” (demolition). The Tanzanian government recently realized that it has allowed a considerable amount of un-permitted construction – everything from walls to restaurants to gas stations – in government property adjacent to the state-built roads. All around the country, officials have marked with spray paint the buildings that must now be demolished. In Mtwara, this new policy means that the big stone wall outside the Lutheran seminary must be removed and one bank’s ATM must be relocated, so it’s not a big deal. But along 450 km between Mtwara and Dar, this means that much of the “commercial development” (a term I use loosely), must be torn down. It’s hard to imagine that the government will follow through on a policy that is likely to be so costly, particularly to less-developed communities.

Anyway, in other news, there was a good article last week in the New York Times (link), raising some very interesting points about the current state of agriculture and global food supplies. The basic gist of the article is that erratic weather (e.g., floods, drought, heat spells) has been cutting into agricultural yields, raising new doubts about long-term global food security, all the while the international community seems to have lost focus on agricultural research and development. The food riots that broke out in developing countries around the world in 2007 and 2008 were likely only the tip of the iceberg.

As on Jonathan Foley, a professor from the University of Minnesota summed up the issue, “We’ve doubled the world’s food production several times before in history, and now we have to do it one more time. The last doubling is the hardest. It is possible, but it’s not going to be easy.”

Meanwhile, Tanzania has committed itself to “Kilimo Kwanza” (Farming First), a national program intended to “Modernise and commercialise agriculture for peasant, small, medium and large scale producers” (link).

A major component of Peace Corps’ environment program in Tanzania is helping improve sustainable agricultural at the local level, particularly for people living with and at-risk of contracting HIV and AIDS.

My current contribution to this effort is a moringa tree program I am planning for villages in Mnazi Bay-Ruvumu Estuary Marine Park.

Moringa oleifera is a fast-growing, drought-resistant, highly-nutritious tree. The species is believed to native to sub-Himalayan tracts of northern India but now can be found worldwide in the tropics and sub-tropics. With leaves rich in protein, vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C, and essential minerals such as iron, this tree is like growing your own multi-vitamin.

I hope that if introduced to some of the villages in the park, moringa could provide a readily available source of nutrients to park residents, who rely on vegetables to be trucked in for much of the year, given the lack of reliable rainfall. To test the feasibility of this idea I have been attempting to grow moringa seedlings in our own backyard, where the soil, to begin with, was about as bad as one can imagine. While the seeds have proven hard to get started, once growing the tree has certainly lived up to the hype.


A moringa seedling trying to grow in an early attempt of a bustani. Notice the poor soil quality.

The first round of a dozen or so seeds I planted back in November produced only two seedlings, one of which was planted in our backyard and one of which we gave to our Mama next door. To see how quickly these trees grow, here’s a little time series of how these two trees turned out:


Clockwise from top-left: (1) the moringa planted in our backyard in mid-February, only a couple of feet tall about a month after transplanting; (2) the same tree in mid-March; (3) by early April, the tree was as tall as our wall; (4) Mama’s tree next door, in early June, which was planted at the same time.

I had to substitute a picture of Mama’s moringa tree for the final photo in the above montage because we came home last week to find the tree in our backyard had succumbed to the Kusi (southeastern monsoon) winds, which have been especially strong as of late. A stiff afternoon wind gust snapped the tree in two. Apparently, while fast growing, moringa can’t be described as a hardwood.


Kali, having emerged from her palm lean-to, inspects the damage.

It was a sad scene – the main stem snapped in half, well below the lowest branch. But as it turns out, once started, moringa can withstand this. A little online research (thanks with the help of a certain Colorado “master gardener”) revealed that moringa can actually be cut back often, as low as a meter from the ground once or twice a year. This is actually recommended, as it keeps the branches from growing out of reach and encourages a thick, hardy main stem.

As for the other half of the tree, I cut off the fresh growth and hung the branches in our storage room to dry (once dried, the leaves can be made into a fine powder that can be added to soups, stews, even oatmeal). I also trimmed off the larger branches so that I could attempt to grow clones of the tree from cuttings.



Moringa leaves drying in our storage room (top) and planted moringa cuttings (below).

The jury is still out on whether the tree (and its cuttings) will live, but if it does, it won’t be a huge surprise. After what happened to the moringa Merritt planted, these trees seem to be fairly hard to kill.

To mark Merritt’s birthday, in early March we planted the sole surviving moringa seedling from our second planting out in front of our house, where the tree seemed to love the sunny, sandy conditions. But in May, just as the tree seemed poised to take off, construction crews arrived to build our front wall and promptly buried the tree under several dump truck loads of sand. After we dug out the remaining stump, we came home one afternoon to find the remains of the poor tree crushed under a cinder block that was being used to help hold up our front gate. I was sure that even if the tree had surviving being buried the first time, it wouldn’t survive this second crushing.

But to our amazement, a week after construction had finished out front, our Mama next door greeted Merritt one morning with the news that the “mti inaota” (“the tree, it is growing”), and sure enough the little sucker somehow survived. We’re letting the tree regain a little bit of its former self before relocating it to a safer local.

When we get back to Mtwara in two weeks, we’ll find out if the moringa in our backyard (and all its clones) have survived. I am hopeful, and encouraged that the tree is right for introduction into villages in the park. I’ll let you all know how it goes.


Anyway, that’s the green news here; hope everyone’s gardens back in the State’s are coming to life.


African honey bees, visiting the flowers in our front garden.

Baseball in Tanzania

Really Building Something…

To build a wall in Tanzania, you don’t just go out and buy the bricks, you make them first.



Merritt and I have found that everything takes longer in Tanzania, from the personal greetings to the simple chores around the house. (For example, need to do a load of laundry? Better clear your schedule, cause it’s gonna take a few hours.) But then you realize it’s not just because your a “mzungu,” for Tanzanians too, even the simple projects can become a Herculean efforts of insanity. Take the new wall around the front of our house as a prime example…



Now, first, I need to make clear that this monstrosity is not of our doing. When we had to renew the rental agreement for our house (which the organization Merritt is working for, I-TECH, is paying the rent on), there was a provision about building a wall in the front. This provision was apparently worked out between I-TECH and our landlord, and stupidly, we didn’t cross it off or insist on its removal then and there. The same provision was in the first contract, and though we were happy with the back wall they built us, we were pleased that nothing had ever come of the front wall that was supposed to be included.

Anyway, so when we recently heard that there was again interest in building the wall, we spoke with Mr. Nzigilwa, from COTC, who knew the landlord and had originally found us the house prior to our arrival. We told him we certainly didn’t need a front wall, that if one was built our house would stick out like a sore thumb in the neighborhood (only attracting more attention to us), and that we were had already started planting trees in front, to create a living fence that would serve much the same purpose.

But in Tanzania, if it’s in the contract, it’s in the contract, and whether we wanted it our not, it was getting built. The only good news, we learned from Mr. Nzigilwa, was that it was only going to be a “ukuta nusu” (half wall), “with pillars on which you can put plants,” as he described it.

So last Tuesday, Merritt returned home in the mid-morning to quickly get something she had forgotten, and found the fundi there with the mama ya nyumbani (house mama, the owner’s wife), laying out their plans for the work. And before they had even finalized the plan or Merritt had a chance to return to work, the first dump truck (of at least a half dozen) arrived, backed up onto our lawn, and proceeded to dump its entire load of sand directly onto all the tree seedlings we had planted (and spent the last couple months watering and tending to). By that afternoon when I returned from work, our front yard had morphed into a brickyard, with a crew of dozen men (actually two were children), including the neighborhood “mlevi” (drunkard) pounding out there hand-made cinderblocks. (The expression “s#%t show” comes to mind…)



To make the bricks, they basically form a big pile of sand, shovel on some dried cement, pour on the water (carried by the children), mix it together, and then shovel it into a single wooden form, and pound it down with the back of a glass, liter Coke bottle. Why it should require a dozen men to make one brick at a time is beyond me, but I honestly didn’t try to figure it out, as I wanted nothing to do with this operation, particularly after they killed all our trees.

My only input into the project was on the first morning, when, after the drunkard arrived just after six, still lit-up from the night before and started stumbling along the top of the piles of sand, shouting, “I love you…!” to nobody in particular, I had to insist that he be relieved of his duties. He would eventually return though, until the work crew also grew tired of his antics and chased him off.

Anyway, now our house looks like … I don’t know, a castle/prison/construction zone, I guess. The front yard will be a hardpan of cement until next year’s rains, and the whole neighborhood mistakenly thinks that we have the money to somehow make this all happen (definitely not the case).

In other news, Kali does not appear to be pregnant, though her boyfriend has plans to try and change this. Our first attempted garden is finally growing (despite some dastardly little worms eating all our broccoli), and our second one (pictured below), covering the former choo (outhouse), is doing surprisingly quite well with squash, tomatoes, watermelon, and of course, for Merritt, salad greens.





Anyway, that’s all the news here. Hope everyone is staying high and dry with the flooding back in the States. Feel free to send a little rain our way, as we’re getting sick of hand watering the garden twice daily.…

Life Update

It has been so long since I the last blogged, so I thought I would give you all a little update about what’s been going on in our life.

From our last post you can see that we had a great time in Zanzibar! It was a blast and it was really nice to get away from our daily working routine. But now it’s back to real life...

Work
It’s the second semester at school and I am teaching Entrepreneurship in Health to the 3rd year medical students. Things are going well so far, but the language barrier makes things difficult at times. Additionally, I just finished gathering data for a library needs assessment of 8 health training institutions in Southern TZ. Now I’m compiling a report and trying to get books and shelving for a number of libraries.

Moss has been working away with both marine park work and his law work back in the states. For the park he is making a great manual, complete with pictures of all the fish and their various samaki names so that the fisherman can properly identify the fish they are catching. He has also been working non-stop on a report for a client back at home (the topic is over my head, so I won’t even try to explain that one.)

Our Garden
It’s growing big time! We have actually been able to make real salads with spinach and mix greens. Anyone that knows me well knows this makes me really happy! We also have kale, various peppers, tomatoes, watermelon, broccoli (it’s kinda dying though), and a number of flowers growing. Our big papaya tree also has fruit on it. We planted a few other trees in our front yard; they are coming along slowly but surely.

Cooking
We now have a new amazing addition in our kitchen, a toaster oven! Yes, it is wonderful! It almost feels like we are cooking in America (besides the fact that we haven’t had running water for 4 days). We have been baking non-stop – we made banana bread, oatmeal raisin cookies, pizza, and last night I made whole wheat pita bread (and it tasted like the real thing, with the little pita pocket in the middle and all). In other culinary adventures, Moss rigged up a grill using a charcoal jiko so we have been grilling fish and steak. You can buy a huge piece of ‘steaki’, which is enough to feed 6 people, for 6,000 shilingi or about $4.00.

Adventures
On Saturday we had an interesting experience... We were dressed in our beach wear (for me that just includes shorts and a tee-shirt, but of course I wouldn’t dare to bare my knees in public, so I just wear a long black skirt on top of my shorts). So we hop on our bikes to ride to the beach, right as a man that Moss works with shows up at our house on a pikipiki. He rode all the way across town to remind Moss of the fundraising event happening at his church. He mentioned this function to Moss the previous week, but Moss completely forgot about it. So after his surprise visit, we decided that we really needed to just stop by and donate a little to the church. We thought we could simply slip in, stay for a few minutes, give a little pesa, slide out, and continue on our way to the beach. Boy, were we wrong!

So we ride to the church, which is actually about 20 minutes away. We did not know exactly where we were going, but we simply followed the sound of the loud music in the distance. This was a singing/dancing event, where the church choir and various performers were selling their CD to raise money. Despite the exciting performance, Moss and I became the show! We parked our bikes and just wanted to listen to a few songs, but suddenly all the kids have formed a circle around us and are just staring and giggling as we stood there watching the dancers. They were mesmerized by the new wazungu. You would have honestly thought that we were the ones jumping around and singing. We ended up staying for a little while; one community member even tried to get Moss to make a speech. Moss managed to dodge that one and we still made it to the beach for a quick swim before the sun went down. All and all it was a fun and interesting day. We told the pastor that we would love to join them next Sunday, so I will have to let you know how that goes.

Kali, Our Paka
We think she might be pregnant! (Or maybe she’s just getting fat!) We are not quite sure, but she has 2 boyfriends that will not leave her alone. Moss continues to scare them away, but who knows what kind of trouble she’s getting into when we are not around. We measured her belly and will measure it again in a week. Hopefully it will not grow. I’ll let you know.

I hope you all had a great Mother's Day! XOXOX

Zanzibar!

Another beautiful sunset here in Mtwara… I was just walking up the hill to the duka behind our house (to get “mayai” (eggs) for dinner), when I came over the rise to see a mushroom-cloud of a thunderhead towering over Mikindani Bay.

I swear I could recognize Mtwara just by the sight of her skyline (see the panorama below of a typical Mtwara sunset). Most days, the sky is filled with building thunderheads, as they role off the Indian Ocean – we only see the lightening and rain falling further inland in the late afternoon. Occasionally it rains hard in town for half an hour, and sometimes, like yesterday, you can be standing in the middle of a downpour, as the sun beats down upon you with its full intensity.


But whereas one might be able to recognize Mtwara from the horizon-up, one will never forget Zanzibar for the other half of the spectrum – the horizon-down. The water – that crystal blue ocean – can only be one place – East Africa’s famous spice island.


Merritt and I recently returned from our first real vacation, five days out on Zanzibar. Except for a Peace Corps training in Morogoro in December and Merritt’s business trips to Dar, we’ve been pretty much at site for the past seven months. While Tanzania is generous with their public holidays (about one every month and three for Easter), we were both in need of a break from the daily eight to four – and also perhaps the seemingly endless household chores that come with living in Tanzania (e.g., washing clothes by hand, filtering drinking water, cutting the grass around your house with a machete). It also happened to be right around our second anniversary, so some kind of trip seemed in order.

While the memory is still fresh, I have a few scenes that I want to describe for you, which I hope will at least bring joy to those of you for whom spring has not yet sprung and are in need of a little reminder of more tropical climes.

Leaving hot, crowded Dar es Salaam, after being hustled for a “deal” on a ferry ticket (“Hapana asante” – “no thanks”), you motor out through Dar’s busy port, littered with dhows and hand-hewn canoes – and as you relax in your bean bag chair (“kweli!” – “really!”), you’re glad you’ve made the effort to come so far already.

And two hours later, having left all the worries on the mainland, you arrive in Stone Town, where the water is so blue it hurts your eyes.


Ferry passengers, residents and tourists alike, burdened with the wares they’re bringing back from Dar and their overstuffed camping backpacks, throng to ferry railing. But there’s really no rush, at least for foreigners, who upon debarking are promptly corralled into a little “customs” waiting area – a set of wooden benches with tin roofing to offer pitiful relief from the eternally fierce sun. But at least there’s a breeze and the ocean to look at – and at least you’re in Zanzibar.

Why do you go through customs when your in the United Republic of Tanzania? Well, Zanzibar has found it advantageous to go along with its coastal neighbor, the former Tanganyika territory, which it joined in 1964, but hasn’t ever quite bridged the gap between it and the mainland,. So things are a little different in Zanzibar.

Anyway, so you finally get through customs, where you Kiswahili lessons pay for themselves, and then, just as in Dar, your greeted by a throng of just as numerous, but even more determined, street “touts.” I hadn’t heard the expression before (it’s British, apparently), but the touts of Zanzibar are a lesson in persistence (in Kiswahili, they’re called “papasi” – “ticks”).

Again, knowing a little basic Kiswahili saves you many a “shida” (problem). “Hoteli!” “Taxi!” “Safari!” They shout at you. “Hapana asante.” “Hatuhitaji.” “Hatuna haja.” You respond.

And when you’re free of the mass of people, you find yourself on the port street of Stone Town, walking in front of the Sultan’s Palace, the House of Wonders, and the Old Fort, and there’s no escaping that you’ve landed in another world, perhaps another time. The city is a combination of Arab, Indian, European, and African influences – big, square, two or three story cement buildings, with massive window-less fronts surrounding their famous carved wooden doors. Built side-by-side, these forts-unto-themselves leave only a maze of shadowy alleyways, in which one can spend the day exploring – every shopkeeper beckoning you into their store, and the occasional small coffee house or outdoor eatery where you can take a rest during the midday heat.

Counterclockwise from top left: House of Wonders (Zanzibar Museum of History); Old Fort; Tanzanian cat; baby basket; and three variations on the Zanzibar front door.

Merritt and I stayed at a bed and breakfast in Stone Town within walking distance of the port, called the Zenji Hotel. The ground floor of this three story building is divided between the hotel office and a coffee shop where the owners sell locally-made crafts, like Zanzibari woodwork and fabrics. The top two floors are small rooms, each individually named, like the “Taste of Culture,” where we stayed. The hotel serves breakfast under a canopied rooftop deck, where you can watch Stone Town come to life, as you have your morning toast (with banana-vanilla bean jam) and black coffee.

Speaking of food, Stone Town, apparently, has many great restaurants – from fancy Italian places to hole-in-the-wall, vegetarian-only Indian joints. However, except for lunch on the first day, Merritt and I wouldn’t know. Two nights in a row, we had talked about and chosen a restaurant for dinner, and both nights we got side-tracked along the way at Foradhani Gardens, a small outdoor park on the waterfront, which transforms nightly into a mecca of street food.

Table after table is piled high with skewers of grilled snapper, barracuda, shark, prawns, lobster and other fish, grilled vegetables, grilled bananas, chapati, nan. Men stand next to giant milling machines, grinding up raw sugar cane to make fresh juice. Then there are desert tables, where they make banana and chocolate pizzas.


After a vendor gives you the tour of his table and you have selected your dinner, they heat it on the grill and give you it on paper plates, so that you can sit out on the pier and watch the sunset, or moonrise if it’s later.

It’s a little overpriced ($1-2 per skewer of grilled fish, $3-4 for lobster or prawns, $2 for banana-chocolate pizza), and you’ll have to forget any questions about the sustainability of your catch, but it may be worth the trip alone.

Stone Town is on the southwestern corner of what is a fairly large island (roughly 30 miles long, 8-10 miles wide), and is in close proximity to several spice plantations that are popular for tours, as well as Jozani National Forest, home to the island’s remaining native red colobus monkeys. Merritt and I were planning on heading to the northern tip of the island, to one of the other major tourist destinations, Nungwi, so we used our one full day in Stone Town to go on a spice tour and to visit some of the other nearby historical sites.

At 8 a.m. the tour guide picks you up at your hotel and before you head out, the driver stops quickly at Darajani Market, where, because it’s so early, you never know what you might see in the “fish department”…

A man cuts up “pungu” (shortfin devil ray) at Darajani Market. Not pictured in this photo, the 12-foot high stack of swordfish directly behind the cameraman. The Island of Zanzibar, roughly twenty miles from the Tanzanian coast, offers its fishermen access to some of the deeper-water, open-ocean fisheries that produce East Africa’s bigger fish. In Mtwara, most fishermen can’t reach such waters in their dhow and dugout canoes, and so the catch is generally smaller.

But it only takes the guide a minute to buy the food for the group’s lunch, and your off to the “shamba” (farm).

The spice tour is, of course, very touristy – for instance, several locals follow the tour group around in the plantation, weaving palm straw necklaces (for the women) and ties (f0r the men), so that they can then ask for tips at the end. But the groups are small and the tour guides good.

As for the spices themselves – you walk along a path through what otherwise looks like the woods, and learn that basically everything you’re looking at – the trees, shrubs, undergrowth – has been specifically imported and planted for some special property. For example, did you know that iodine is comes from the sap of a tree? (This little tidbit proved useful within the hour of learning it.)

Cinnamon trees were another interesting stop – yes, the bark is used to make cinnamon, but who knew that the tree’s roots also contain the compound in menthol, also found in certain types of mint? Seems odd that the same tree can produce two such distinctive flavors.

From left to right: iodine, cinnamon, vanilla, and jackfruit.

Cardamon, nutmeg, black pepper, vanilla, cocoa, cloves – Zanzibar grows it all, and from what I understand, exports surprisingly little of it these days (a compliment to the local cooking).

Clockwise from top left: nutmeg, tamarind, cloves, and cocoa.

If you go on a spice tour out of Stone Town, there’s a good chance you’ll get to visit the Kidichi Persian baths, built by Sultan Seyyid for his wife in the 1850s. There’s not much to look at, but it’s still fun to imagine the sultan, his wife, and their entourage traveling out from their palace for their daily bath.

Our final stop of the day on our spice tour was Mangapwani caves, along the island’s central western coast. For much of the 19th century, Zanzibar was the capital of the East African slave trade. By one estimate, in the four decades before the British abolished the trade in the region in 1873, as many as 600,000 Africans were sold in the Zanzibar slave markets, destined for Arabia, Persia, and the Indian Oceans. After the slave trade was outlawed, however, an illegal slave trade continued on Zanzibar, and the Mangapwani caves were used to hold slaves until they could be smuggled out under cover of darkness. With a small spring at the bottom, slaves could be held here for weeks before being led out the two hundred meter long tunnel that leads to the ocean, where a boat would be waiting.


I think I’ve mentioned before that the remnants of the Colonial era are ever present in Tanzania – from German missionaries to massive sisal plantations to Mtwara’s failed peanut scheme. But Zanzibar, with its spice plantations, Persian baths, and former slave markets, offers a very different impression of colonialism – one of brute subjugation being used to support luxury and opulence.

After two days in Stone Town, we had had our fill of history, street hustlers, and fish kabobs – it was time to head to the beach.

Yet while I would love to be able to tell you more about Nungwi, I honestly can only describe what I saw from the taxi window, as Merritt and I were driving to Mnarani Beach Cottages, where we were staying. Nungwi is, by all appearances, a small fishing village – one that also happens to have several major resort hotels. Only here can you find a Double Tree Hotel in the midst of mud-and-thatch homes.

But Mnarani Beach Cottages is lovely…


Perched on the tidal cliff at Zanzibar’s northern pinnacle, Mnarani has a lighthouse for a neighbor (“mnarani” is “lighthouse” in Kiswahili). And though low tide exposes a half mile section of seafloor, at high tide, the swimming and snorkeling are considered some of the best on the island.

After finally picking up a pair of snorkel and goggles for Merritt in Stone Town, we finally got to go exploring out on the reef together, and Zanzibar did not disappoint. Though we never got a chance to get all the way out to the main reef, what we saw was still pretty incredible. Within our first two minutes, while still swimming out through the sea grass beds, Merritt spotted a beautiful bandit-stripped sea snake – calmly cruising through the sea grass on her morning hunt. We paused to watch her swim by and then continued on for deeper waters.

I must say that much of what we saw was overrun with sea urchin (a well-known sign of overfishing). Still amidst fields of sea grass and coral rubble, you could find these massive brain corals, teaming with tropical fish – wrasses, anglefish, squirrelfish, sergeants, sweepers, gobies, even the occasional puffer fish. And if you dive down to get a better look, occasionally you’ll see the eyes of a moray eel, peering back at you from his cave. Sometimes he’ll even swim out a little to give you a good look at his bald, brown and white-spotted head.

A morning or afternoon can go by pretty quick when your snorkeling. On one trip, it took us an hour to get out of the water after we discovered that the dock at the neighboring Italian resort was packed with bait fish – and barracuda and snapper charging through the schools. We saw more fish in an hour under a dock than we’d seen in three hours out on the reef.

So pretty quick, our two days in Nungwi were gone and it was time to return to Stone Town to catch the ferry to Dar, for the following morning’s return flight to Mtwara.

Anyway, it was a great trip, and there’s much of Zanzibar that we didn’t get to see – like the famous white beaches of the east coast or Jazani Forest. So if you feel like you need to see Zanzibar for yourself, “karibu” (welcome), and Merritt and I will meet you at the ferry (if not the Dar airport).

Chakula Kitamu Sana!

Moss and I now consider ourselves professional Tanzanian cooks… well not exactly, but we sure cook a lot of traditional food. Our staple meal includes… wali na nazi, maharage, katchumbari, mboga, na samaki (coconut rice, beans, tomato salad, pumpkin greens or cabbage, and fish). We also love chapati, which is similar to a tortilla or pita bread, but much more tasty. We will walk you through how to make our favorite Tanzanian meals.

Maziwa ya Nazi (Coconut Milk)

Coconuts are grown in abundance in Mtwara, and the people use coconuts for much more than just eating. They make straw mats, baskets, and bowls out of the palm leaves, and various types of jewelry and decorative items out of the shells. Coconut milk is also added to many dishes as it adds a nice sweet flavor. It takes a lot of work, but it’s worth it. Wali na nazi (coconut rice) is one of Moss’ favorite Tanznanian dishes, so we make a lot of coconut milk.

Steps:
1. Crack open coconut, save the juice that is inside
2. Grind the coconut using mbozi (coconut grinder/seat)
3. Place coconut shavings in a large bowl and cover with warm water and juice from inside the coconut
4. Using your hands, squeeze the shavings of coconut until the water starts to look milky
5. Pick up a handful of coconut shavings and squeeze juice into a smaller bowl, return shavings back to larger bowl after squeezing
6. Continue to pick up handful of shavings and squeeze until all the liquid is in the smaller bowl and only shavings remain in the larger
7. If a number of shavings have fallen into your milk you can then use a strainer to strain out chucks and get pure, yummy, delicious coconut milk

Grinding Nazi

Straining Nazi

Now that you have coconut milk you can add it to the rice and beans. You can even add a little milk and sugar to the coconut milk if you like it extra sweet.

Wali Na Nazi (Coconut Rice)

You simply use coconut milk in the place of water when making rice:
1. Place 1 cup of washed rice in a small pot
2. Place 2 cups of coconut milk in the pot
3. Add a little bit of salt and oil
4. Bring to a boil, stir, cover, and reduce heat to a simmer for 45 minutes or until its ready
5. Fork it and eat it

Katchumbari (Tomato Salad)

One of my favorite things to eat is Katchumbari (tomato salad). It is super delicious, especially if you are a salad person like me, and it’s a lot easier to make compared to the coconut milk.

Ingredients:
-1 kilo of tomatoes (about 10 little roma or 4 big tomatoes), cut in half and then into small slices 2 red onions, finely sliced
-1/3 of a cabbage, shredded
-1/2 of a cucumber, cut in half and then into small slices
-1 or 2 green peppers, shredded or cut into to small strips
-Lemon juice (or lime juice, add enough to cover tomato mixture)
-Salt to taste (you can also add a little pepper if you want)

Prepare all of the ingredients above and add together. Make it how you like it, if you want more onions or cucumbers add them, if you don’t like cabbage or green peppers leave them out. Many Tanzanians add 1 chili pepper, and only eat a little katchumbari with their rice and beans, but we leave out the chili so we can eat it as a big salad. Do what you like. I highly recommend making some variation of this salad if you like tomatoes, because it’s super tasty.

Samaki (Fish)

We used to buy filets of fish, but now Moss has been going to the big fish soko right on the beach and buys the whole fish. You get more fish for a better price this way. We either pan fry the fish or do samaki uchemcha (boiled fish). When doing boiled fish, we add various spices to the water. Yumm.

Chapati (tortilla bread)

This is another one of our favorites, but you have to be careful because if you eat too many they will make you ‘nenepa’ or fat. Tanzanians tell anyone right to their face that they are getting fat, in the village this is a compliment, and the proper response is ‘asante’ or thank you.

Ingredients:
-3 cups white flour
-1 tablespoon of salt (more if you like things salty)
-2 tablespoons of oil
-water

Steps:
1. Wash hands, you have to use them for all the mixing and rolling
2. Mix dry ingredients well
3. Add 2 tablespoons of oil to flour mixture and mix in with your hands until flour feels a little sandy
4. Add a little bit of water at a time and continue to mix with your hands until it forms an elastic dough
5. You will have one big ball of dough, break off a piece of dough, a little bigger than an ice cream scoop, and roll dough ball into a circle. Place on board and flatten with rolling pin
6. Add ½ teaspoon of oil and rub on dough (amount of oil will vary, just cover surface)
7. Roll circle up, like a jelly roll/fruit-roll up
8. Roll it again into a snail shell/cinnabun shape
9. Repeat process, until you have done it to all of the dough
10. Some people like to let the dough sit for 20 minutes to 1 hour, but I often just start the cooking process, hamnashida, it tastes the same to me
11. Roll 1 dough ball out into a flat circle
12. Put a little oil in pan and place flat piece of dough in pan
13. Chapati will bubble up, use a spoon (that has been dipped in oil) to flatten bubbles and then after about 2 minutes or until first side looks cooked, flip the chapati and cook the other side
14. Place the cooked chapatti in a container that will keep it hot and repeat the process for all of the dough.
15. Enjoy, they are flaky and delicious!

Meals

A veggie burrito on chapati. This is tasty, but it's even better with a little samaki in there.

Moss' intimidating plate that includes samaki (fish), wali na nazi (coconut rice), maraharage na nazi (beans with coconut), and cabbichi (cabbage)

Samaki uchemcha, wali na nazi, maraharage, kachumbari, and fried pueza and calamari (fried squid and octopus)

A typical lunch served at my school. Notice this doctor has 2 plates! The plate in his left hand is filled with meat, juice, beans, and cabbage. The plate in his right hand is filled to the brim with ugali, or corn mush, which Tanzanians eat with most meals. You simply use your hand to form a small ball out of the ugali and then use the stiff ball as a sort of utensil to eat your other food.
Thought I would show you a picture of the kitchen at school... no stoves, ovens, etc. All the food is cooked on charcoal jikos! Pictured is our lunch mama straining rice.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Crunchy – Creepy Crawlies of the Rainy Season

No, unlike the volunteer in Newala, we did not find an eastern green mamba hanging from the beams inside our thatch roof – we’ll thankfully leave that story for another blog. But we did find a baby scorpion in our bathroom the other morning, probably hunting the ants that are often patrolling through the area. And a couple of weeks ago, I came into the bedroom to find a spider the size of my hand in one corner of the ceiling – crouching as though like he was making to spring at my head. He was more legs than body, but it didn’t make a difference to me – I got the bug spray.

The spider in our bedroom.

With the current rainy season, we’ve seen a proliferation of the insect life here on the hot, swampy southern coast. One of the few rewards of this “bounty,” if one can be said to exist, is the mass migration of butterflies that is passing through the region. Sitting at my desk at home, these big, colorful beauties bounce into my view through the window, as they stop and visit whatever plants we might have blooming in the front garden. And riding into town in the late afternoon, you’ll see thousands of butterflies, flying right over the city on their journey north. After their trip through the jungles of Mozambique and the Ruvumu mangroves, they are fat and strong, and rarely land for long. I guess they still have a long way to go, and I’m happy we can send them on their way with a little nectar from our front yard.

It being a tropical country, one also has to think about mosquitoes – and particularly the malaria carrying Anopheles type. With all the rain, Mtwara has no shortage of mosquitos, including our neighborhood and our house unfortunately. We had one Tanzanian suggest that we follow the national trend, and cut down the grass around our house, essentially to the dirt. He claimed the grass would attract mosquitos. I don’t know, maybe he’s right, but I would suspect the huge puddles of water around the neighborhood, left from the daily afternoon rain showers, have something to do with the problem.

But we’ve definitely had mosquitoes in our house, biting us at night, despite our mosquito netting. And then, a couple of weeks ago, just as we’re noticing what a problem it was becoming, Merritt happened to come down with a fever. We take malaria prophylaxis everyday, essentially a low-dose antibiotic, which should prevent us from getting sick, but it’s not guaranteed. When Merritt’s temperature spiked at 102.7° F, we were definitely nervous and decided for her to take the malaria self-test. Thankfully it came back negative, and Merritt seems to have recovered from whatever bug she had, but maybe we will have to get the grass cut anyway. Although I did recently here of another approach we could take for reducing the local mosquito population.…

I actually saw an article recently about some new research on a particular type of spider that preys upon the malaria-carrying Anopheles mosquito, which showed that this spiders are actually attracted to human odor, particularly, as this study found, the smell of dirty socks. Here’s the link to the story, but in case you miss it, here’s the key quote from one of the researchers in the study, Fiona Cross from the University of Canterbury, describing the hunting abilities of the East African jumping spider: “When they smell blood, they can launch into feeding frenzies where they kill up to 20 mosquitoes in rapid succession.”

Dirty socks, eh? Who knew that not doing the laundry and forgoing washing the sheets might be the solution to our mosquito problem? Personally, I was starting to suspect that might be part of the problem.

The East African jumping spider, Evarcha culicivora. I'm
positive I’ve seen these little suckers around our house.

Another somewhat welcome predator of the proliferation of insects is our “jusi,” which are little tropical geckos that are everywhere. They seem to also have found a way into our house, and we have one that we’ve watched grow from the size of a worm to now three or four inches. Lately, this lizard has appeared in our bedroom, hanging on the window screen, slurping up any stray flies. As you can see, we have a veritable circus of insects and their predators in our house.

"Jusi"

But at least there’s the one thing that we’ve thankfully managed to keep from our house – the termites. Now, I recognize that some of you reading this blog already know a thing or two about termites and swarming termites – but these are like the B-17s of termites and their swarm is like the pre-dawn bombardment of the German defenses on Normandy on D-Day. Their bodies aren’t all that much bigger then the typical termite, but its the wings that give it the effect – two oversized sets that create the sound of crumpling newspaper when they’re swarming.

A couple of nights we’ve left our outside light on too long after they’ve started up for the night, and we ended up with a cloud of them around our house. The first time this happened, we turned out the outdoor lights but kept our indoor lights on, curtains drawn. Result: determined to get the next source of light, the termites crawled in between the layers of mosquito netting on our windows and then, now trapped, proceeded to die. The next day, swarms of ants came and cleaned up the gross mess.

Another time we didn’t turn of the lights when the termites started swarming, some kids from the neighborhood came up onto our porch to set buckets of water up under the light, as a trap to catch the falling insects. It was then that I learned that people actually eat these things – apparently they’re quite popular at this time of year, fried up in a big batches until crunchy. We’ve since seen the kids amassing at a neighbor’s house, under their outdoor florescent lamp, swatting the termites into buckets. It’s quite the scene.

So while the inundation of insect life may seem like a nightmare, they’re all relatively harmless (except the mosquitoes, of course), and for some people, they’re even a blessing, an extra source of protein in the middle of the labor-intensive planting season. If we can just remember to turn out our lights when the termites start swarming, I think we’ll be able to tolerate it.

Kazkazi, Maboga, and Our Growing Fundi Collection

In Tanzania, December to March marks the season of the north winds, the “kazkazi” or north monsoon. But after a December in which we had a couple of very big storms (see earlier entry about our flood), January brought little if any rain at all. People were getting nervous about the growing season, and then February rolled around, and it’s like someone finally turned the faucet on. Sunny quiet mornings now give way to gusty, stormy afternoons, with the day’s rain lasting maybe only ten minutes but bringing with it an inch or two of water. The dirt roads flood and turn to mud soup, and then the sun comes out and bakes them hard again, in preparation for the next day’s storms. A couple of nights we’ve had earth-shaking thunderstorms and one afternoon’s storms included a lightening strike within half a mile of our house.

And with the rain, everything is suddenly green and springing into life. The word from up on the plateau is that the people have finally been able to plant their mahindi (maize), potentially averting the food shortages some people were warning about. (One volunteer had a neighbor tell him that as far as villagers were concerned, it simply had to rain because otherwise they would have no food.) Well, the rain has finally come, and the season seems prepared to go out on a bang.

For us, the critical staple appears to be not maize, but rather pumpkin, a enormous plant of which is thankfully growing wild our backyard. We’ve trellised some vines along the back walls and now up onto the water tower. In addition to the actual pumpkins, we’re eating “maboga,” or pumpkin leaves, with dinner nightly. (You pick only the small ones, cut them up, and sauté them with onions, tomatoes, and garlic. They’re delicious – kind of nutty in flavor.) Altogether, we have eaten one whole pumpkin (generating a dinner’s worth of boiled pumpkin and three pumpkin breads), and given two others away as gifts. This all from something we didn’t even plant.


Maboga – On the Loose.



Almost ready – the local pumpkins don't ever turn orange like back in the States, maybe just a little tan when there ready.


Maboga leaves, ready for cooking.


This miracle pumpkin is even the backbone of our nascent garden – providing much of the organic material for the sandy, clayey soil we initially found. We added chopped-up leaves directly into the soil, a day or two before planting, and composted larger piles of leaves for new soil. It’s been growing so much, if anything the pumpkin has benefited from all the trimming.

Though to be honest, the plant has had a little “supplemental” irrigation. Recently, Mtwara’s municipal water supply has been, well, sufficient, to say the least. The only faucet in the house that has yet to be replaced in our time here is finally busting at the seems, thanks to probably 1000 psi worth of water at times. So it was no surprise when I came home from work last Friday to find a small stream running past the back door, which I then traced to a break in the water pipe for our house, square in the heart of the pumpkin patch.

We got the phone number of a local plumber (i.e., “fundi ya bomba,” or literally, “craftsman of the pipes”), but by the time Jamal came on Saturday morning to fix it, I reckon the plant had drunk near a thousand gallons of water. I thought all the water might drown it, but it’s thirst appears to have no limits. It’s now making a break for the roof, after overtaking the water tank.

It was not the first time we’ve had a similar problem, and Jamal had actually been to our house before we moved in, when the water tank was installed. He joins the growing list of our fundis – one for every specialized repair job we need.

I have a fundi for our bikes – a man over by the town soko who works achingly, slow but keeps our bikes in good working order. Most bike fundis specialize in only one trade – repairing “puncha,” or tire punctures. They sit under the Christmas trees along the main road into Mtwara, like one every half mile or so, and can patch a tube in less than five minutes flat. For a 300 shilling, they’re a lifesaver in a pinch. But they can’t fix your breaks, nor might you really want them to try. So I found a fundi for that.

We also have our furniture fundi, Mr. Salumu, who has made, glass windows for our house, a couch, a coffee table, and two beautiful bedside bureaus. This man earned our undying devotion when he and his two helpers spent an entire day installing our windows, staying till eight in the evening, after having to shave down each of the frames by hand (it being my fault the measurements were off). More recently, he kind of botched two picture frames we asked him to build (badly warped), but I still plan to eventually have him build us some bookshelves for the Peace Corps book collection that we’ve temporarily inherited.



The windows Bwana Salumu built for our house – from back in October, when Kali was still a kitten.

We also known of an electrical fundi who lives near us, the cell phone number of a small appliance fundi (recommended by the Indian duka owner in town), and I’ve even scoped out a refrigerator fundi at the market, in contemplation of eventually needing his services on our second-hand unit. Even the young girls of our neighboring family are technically fundi, with the little sewing business they run on their front porch (though Merritt says they might not yet qualify as “craftsmen”).

So fundi are everywhere, and we have a list of ours. Salaried positions are not unheard of here in the town, but they’re still the rare exception – most people are in business for themselves, one way or another.

I recently completed some analysis on a new village community banking program that was established in the villages in the marine park, and people use loans for all sorts of basic businesses, from drying cassava to selling fish to starting up roadside food stands (called a mamalishe). Roughly a fifth of the one hundred and twenty women who borrowed money through the program reported using the money to start a business cooking the local type of doughnuts, called mandazi. But their businesses were generally profitable and few were unable to repay their loans.

Even people with salaried positions with the government, like my boss at the park or the acting principle of Merritt’s school, also own shambas (farms) outside of town, where they grow cassava or cashews for a little supplemental income for their family. (These men, after all, could be supporting a truly extended family, dispersed around the nation.) It’s a place where the majority of paid labor comes in the form of personal services, and the rest of the time, your work probably qualifies as subsistence labor (everyone after all, even the volunteers, have a bustani, or garden).

Some Tanzanians will tell you that the country’s labor system is partly what makes life so difficult for the people. You live from one season to the next, and those who do have salaries, are the cash cows to their extended family. I don’t know enough to weigh in on the economic aspects of it, but I will say that the system is unique at least for the personal connections and social interdependency it builds. As we’re discovering, sometimes the key to dealing with life’s little problems is simply known the right fundi.

February 20 marks six months at site, so we’re about a quarter through our service. As Merritt recently commented, life is entering a state of normality – though it’s a distinctly Tanzanian life.

It's Raining!

Right now it is pouring outside, lightening, thundering, absolutely pouring. And if you didn’t know any better you would think it is raining gold…

So our house is quite a bit larger than most of the houses in our surrounding community, and we also have a safi tin roof, rather than the typical thatch roof. As it started raining about five minutes ago, I began to hear screams and endless giggles. Of course I ran to the window to see what was happening and well, you certainly wouldn’t see this in America. People were flocking to our house, flocking!

Currently, there are eight people right outside the window, mainly young kids, but also two older dadas (sisters) who are around my age. They are all carrying big, empty buckets on their heads and they are strategically placing them along the concrete that lines our small flower beds out front. They are trying to catch the maji (water) that is falling off our tin roof in perfect streams; it almost looks like the stream of a pressure washer as the water is falling so hard.

As they wait for their buckets to fill, three of the little girls, who are around seven or eight year’s old, strip down to their underwear and attempt to take showers in the water that is falling from the roof. They are letting the streams of water fall and hit their faces, they are drinking it, and holding up their hands to it. Wow, they are just giggling their little hearts out, you might honestly think they were at Disney World or something. They are so happy to be playing in the rain and taking a shower (they normal only take bucket baths so I guess a shower is pretty exciting). Man, I wish my camera was charged so that I could take a picture of this…

After some of the buckets are full, the little kids simply place different buckets under the streaming water, and put the full buckets on their heads to walk back towards their homes. But they are not gone for long, they return with new, empty buckets just moments later.

Here comes one of my favorite little girls again, she is back now for her third bucket and has a huge smile on her face. This little girl is super cute; she is about eight, has corn rows in her hair, and is wearing only her underwear while carrying a mini white bucket on her head. She is one of my favorites because whenever I see her she always jokes with me and tries to make me laugh.

It has been about twenty minutes now, and the water is still continuing to pour, but the crowd and the giggles are slowly fading. There is just one last dada (sister) filling up her ndoo (bucket).

In a way, it is raining gold… Water is such a precious commodity that is often hard to come by when it is not raining. Sometimes we will see little kids collecting dirty, muddy water that is in a ditch on the side of the road, because at times people are THAT desperate for water. This rain water will be used by the whole family for drinking, cooking, taking bucket baths, washing clothes, doing dishes, etc.

Water really is an essential commodity that we (or at least I used to) take for granted in the States. It’s just so nice and easy to turn on a faucet and always have continuous, reliable water- BE THANKFUL! Can you image having to run in the pouring rain (in your underwear?), with buckets on your head, in attempt to collect as much water as possible?

XOXOX